World Religions Conference November 1957

Author(s): Sushil Muni
Publisher: Achal Singh Seth

Page 52

Subjects Committe meets at
the Red Fort
The entire metropolitan public had been impatiently looking forward to this Conference. It was at 9 A.M. that a sitting of the Subject Committee was arranged in the Dewan-e-Aam of the Red Fort, as a preliminary step, in this direction, with the object of Introducing national and Inter-national delegates coming from far and near, so that they could meet and exchange their views with one another. This was an open session so thousands of men and women were able to attend the same. Besides Indian delegates, there were no less than 250 delegates from various countries like Russia, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Holland, Hungary, Japan, Cambodia, Burma, Ceylon, Nepal and Pakistan: some of them seated on vast stage set up for the purpose and some in chairs in front of them. On the right and left of the main stage, Jain Acharyas, Budhist Bhikshus, Sadhus and Sanyasis, from all over the country, were seated in large number. It was a grand sight. It was for the first time in the history of India that religious heads, from all over the world sat side by side. Zia-uddin Babakhanov from Kazakistan and konstantin Ruzhitsky, Arch Priest of Russia were the cynosure of all eyes by their beaming personalities and colourful costumes. Their presence was proof that religion had not been altogether divorced from the land of the Russians as is commonly believed.
With a view to clarifying the purpose of the Conference and the aims and objects thereof, Muni Sushil Kumar ji and Kaka Saheb Kalelkár gave a brief address on the subject.
Address by Muni Sushil Kumar Ji
Today we are starting with the proceedings of the World Religions Conference. As members of the Subject-Committee, we are here to attend to the views of each other and particularly to those of our brethren, the foreign delegates. During the last 200 years, similiar Conferences, were held in our country and abroad; but we never had an opportunity to raise the moral standards of the common man, with the result that we went down in the scale of moral re